Bruce Price "Frieze Fragment #3"

Plus Galleries first exhibition with Bruce Price was "The New York Paintings" in 2004 in a pairing that also marked the debut of Michael Whiting. It was a fabulous show with equal recognition given to both artists by the press and public alike, though Price's work was later recognized by Mary Voelz Chandler of the Rocky Mountain News as one of the best exhibitions across the board that year (including institutional shows) and he was also noted as Denver's top Abstract painter by the RMNEWS as well. The major works in the exhibition were diamond-shaped canvases that referenced major cultural figures whose work dealt with concepts of patterning and ornamentation, each pattern on the canvas built up through a hundred or more layers of paint. The effect of building the paint up in this fashion led to an edge treatment that was imprecise and curled over off the edge of the canvas in a highly appealing manner. The surfaces of the paintings had a distinctly rigid, plastic look, a result of the layering and intrinsic quality of acrylic paint and gel medium. The minor pieces including "Frieze Fragment #3" stood out in a similar fashion though with a slightly looser pattern structure and thicker sense of layering. I fell in love with the Frieze Fragments and ended up aquiring one a couple years after the exhibition when finances allowed. They are still some of my favorite works by Price and a period of his evolution that I think will always stand as a high point (including acquisitions from the show by renowned architect David Adjaye during his initial visits to Denver after being selected to design the new MCA Denver).